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On September 12, 2018, Apple will hold its second major event at the Steve Jobs Theater at the company's new Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. An invitation was sent out to press and other invitees with the above image and the words "gather round." This is an allusion to Apple Park, which shares that shape. But there might be more to it.

In any case, we expect the event to focus primarily on iPhones and the Apple Watch, just like the event on the same day in the same room last year, when Apple announced the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, and Apple Watch series 3. We'll dive deep on each possible product announcement momentarily, but first let's talk about Apple's general focus and strategy right now.

While last year's iPhones have outperformed the rest of the smartphone industry, smartphone sales are not growing like they used to. A number of factors are behind this, market saturation being a major one. Apple has generally found the most success in the past by diving into developing-product categories and refining them; that's what the company did with the iPod, iPad, iPhone, Watch, and AirPods.

Apple surely has its sights on future options for that—cars, TVs, and AR glasses possibly among them—though we don't know which of the company's internal experiments will actually come to market. What we do know is that Apple has been doubling down on its services business (which includes Apple News, the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, and so on) and that the company is investing heavily in both augmented reality and machine learning.

Expect all three of those points of focus to permeate the messaging around every product Apple announces next week, just as they do the iOS 12 beta we're currently poking around in. Machine learning drives key concepts behind both Siri and the TrueDepth camera. Augmented reality has been fundamental to most of what the company has done on mobile in the past year. And both macOS Mojave and iOS 12 infuse Apple News stories and other Apple services into new apps and parts of the user experience.

Finally, with both consumers and legislators publicly criticizing companies like Facebook and Google for user-data-based business models over the past year, Apple is trying to position itself as the privacy-friendly alternative to its competitors. Expect Apple to talk this up a lot at the event, taking every opportunity to differentiate iOS and the features of the new products from their competitors on that basis.

For example, while the company has implemented several new machine-learning-based ideas into the Photos app and Siri in iOS 12, it is very careful to tell customers, partners, and the press that it does not use customers' private data to train and improve those features.

Now let's review the products—both the ones we're pretty sure we'll see next week and the ones that are possible but far from certain.

Definite or likely announcements

These are the products we're fairly confident will make an appearance at the show, based on our knowledge of Apple's plans and reports from reliable insiders over the past several months.

At least two (possibly three) successors to the iPhone X

Last year, Apple announced the iPhone X, the iPhone 8, and the iPhone 8 Plus. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus iterated on the basic design the company has been using for its flagship iPhones since the iPhone 6 in 2014. That meant a significantly faster processor, new sensors for augmented reality, and support for wireless charging. The latter of those necessitated the back of the phone be made with glass, which didn't thrill users who worry about breaking their phones.

Below: Photos showing the iPhone X design—expected to be the template for this year's new iPhones—from our review.

The iPhone X isn't actually "all screen," and it has that notch. But that doesn't make it any less dramatic.

Samuel Axon

The iPhone X's rear cameras are now aligned vertically instead of horizontally.

Still no headphone jack. We're going to have to get over it.

The top of the iPhone X.

The volume controls are unchanged.

But the button on the other side now performs many of the functions that used to be relegated to the now-absent home button.

The taller display didn't actually add another row of apps like the iPhone 5s did a few years back.

Samuel Axon

Side by side, the iPhone 8 (which is almost exactly the same size as the iPhone 7) and the iPhone X don't look dramatically different, but the iPhone X is a little bigger in every dimension.

That's in spite of the fact that the iPhone X's screen measures larger diagonally.

Further Reading

The iPhone X is also made of glass, but it brought the most radical innovations to the iPhone line in years. Apple switched from an LCD display to OLED, which offers deeper blacks and better contrast ratios—and that screen stretched nearly edge to edge across the front of the device, providing more screen real estate for apps to work with. The iPhone X also introduced the TrueDepth camera, a front-facing 3D camera that allowed for more advanced facial-recognition features than any prior consumer phone. But that's just the start; TrueDepth can be used for myriad other things once third-party app developers support it.

The iPhone X went on to be the world's best-selling smartphone. So it should be no surprise that Apple is doubling down on that design in 2019. Multiple reports from Bloomberg citing sources close to Apple's plans have said that Apple will again launch three phones at this year's event and that every one of them will be modeled closely after the iPhone X.

iPhone X successor

One would be a direct successor—the same design as the iPhone X, with mainly a spec bump. (We'll call that phone the iPhone XS for now, though its final name is not publicly known.) That will include Apple's new A12 processor, which is rumored to come from Apple's move to a 7nm process. Technologists and analysts have speculated that this could net as much as a 20-30 percent speed increase over the prior model, which was already the fastest phone we'd ever benchmarked when it arrived last year.

Not much else is known about this phone. Camera improvements are likely, and we'd be happy to see a revised version of Apple's Face ID authentication technology that would make it recognize faces faster and more reliably. (Apple's prior authentication, Touch ID, saw similar improvements in its second generation.) Apple's current chief areas of aggressive development beyond that are in augmented reality, health monitoring, and machine learning, so more internal components to facilitate those are also possible.

A bigger sibling to the iPhone X successor

Apple is also reportedly working on a 6.5-inch phone based on the iPhone X template. This phone would likely be very similar to the iPhone X successor mentioned above, apart from its size, and it could carry the name iPhone XS Plus. Past Plus phones have had better cameras than their smaller siblings, so that is a possibility here. But we're just speculating based on past differentiators in Apple's lineup.

9to5mac cited unnamed sources who claimed that this phone will be called "the iPhone Xs Max." Let's hope not.

An LCD iPhone X successor

The iPhone X started at $1,000, and the OLED display was a major factor in that steep pricing. We expect the iPhone XS to be priced similarly to the iPhone X, but not all consumers are willing to pay that price for a phone. Guided by CEO Tim Cook, Apple's strategy with the iPhone lineup of late has been to offer phones at a variety of price points to address as much of the market as possible—a departure from predecessor Steve Jobs' philosophy. Expect Apple to offer phones at lower price points this year, too.

That could mean simply offering the iPhone 8 at a cheaper price than the company does currently. But reports in Bloomberg and elsewhere have suggested that Apple will introduce a third phone based on the iPhone X design but with an LCD screen instead of OLED to bring the price down. The phone would also use different materials that are cheaper to purchase and manufacture with.

The phone is expected to have the TrueDepth sensor array and Face ID, as well as the near-edge-to-edge display design of the iPhone X and the other two new iPhones this year. Curiously, the reports have said that this phone will measure at 6.1 inches—in between the 5.8 inches for the posited iPhone XS and the 6.5 inches for the iPhone XS Plus or Max.

Apple Watch series 4

Apple will almost certainly announce a new Apple Watch at this event. It will probably be called Apple Watch series 4, and its flagship feature will probably be a bigger screen. Folks who have explored the watchOS 5 beta have discovered evidence that it will have a screen resolution of 384x480 pixels, compared to 312x390 in the series 3 model. This would allow for displaying more information on the watch face at any given time. Despite the larger screen size, the watch is not expected to be significantly bigger—that's because the expanded screen would be made possible with reduction of the bezels around said screen. Existing Watch bands will, in all likelihood, still work with the new device.

FastCompanyreported that the new Apple Watch will replace the existing mechanical buttons with solid-state buttons that provide haptic feedback, similar to the home button on recent iPhones or the trackpad on recent MacBooks. The publication cited "a source with direct knowledge of Apple's plans." However, subsequent leaks have raised some doubts about this.

Users and critics have requested better battery life and more fitness and health-monitoring features in the new Apple Watch, and we would not be surprised to see both of these. For example, the Watch does not support sleep tracking, but some of its competitors do.

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Samuel Axon
Based in Los Angeles, Samuel is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he covers Apple products, display technology, internal PC hardware, and more. He is a reformed media executive who has been writing about technology for 10 years at Ars Technica, Engadget, Mashable, PC World, and many others. Emailsamuel.axon@arstechnica.com//Twitter@SamuelAxon

Looking forward to the new Apple Watch, but not so sure I'll upgrade due to the budget. Wait and see I guess.

Walkie-talkie app isn't worth much since it only works with other Watches. Of course that's a problem with pretty much everything voice related anymore, no interoperability between platforms at all.

Apple News on macOS looks like an "It's about time" addition. I never used it on iOS because I'm pretty happy with Reeder/FeedHQ. If I can keep all the feeds in sync and have a pretty UI I might switch.

I’ve been vocal in hating FaceID on my iPhone. Given the frequency that I unlock my iPhone, which is probably hundreds of times a day, and the frequency at which it fails (fairly often), and how slow it is, and the fact that none of this was a problem for me with TouchID, has made using the iPhone X a frequently frustrating experience. I hate it.

That said, I feel like it would work better on an iPad. My iPad tends to naturally get positioned more parallel with my face, whereas I’m frequently trying to use or unlock my phone at an odd angle. So I’m somewhat open to it, but damn sure won’t be on the front edge buying this time.

But Apple really needs to introduce some sort of fingerprint authentication back into their phones, especially if rumors are true that Samsung is about to do so. Sticking with faceid exclusively is about the only thing that could get me back onto android, especially given how I feel about google. But faceid in current state isn’t viable, and there’s no way I’d buy another iPhone without some type of major change or improvement.

If “Augmented reality has been fundamental to most of what the company has done on mobile in the past year,” I can see why people were extra-frustrated with iOS 11: bugs are easier to take when you’ve got a lot of new features.

September event:-3 new iPhones (9, 10s, 10s+) give or take some weird naming differences. -Watch series 4-AirPods?-AirPower? Maybe via press release since it's so late. Probably will touch on that though.-New higher wattage power bricks come standard with the new phones. There will be a charging portion of the keynote I bet, especially if AirPower is ready.

October event:-New iPad Pros, possibly bumping up to 11" and 12.9", smaller bezels, FaceID, etc.-New Pencil? Maybe?-Fixing the bottom end of the laptop line, which means...-MacBook Air (and 13" pro without touchbar?) goes away-MacBook 12" gets new chips and keyboard from 2018 Pros.-Introduce a bigger 13 inch "MacBook" that includes 2 TB3 ports, similar to touchbar-less 13" pro. Uses 15W chips like the Air line used, Retina screen, hopefully a revised keyboard. Price reduction on the MacBook line to make their entry level make sense again.-Mac Mini update? Hopefully.

I think Phones + Watch + AirPods/AirPower are one event, iPads/Macs/Mojave are a 2nd event in October. Too much stuff for one event.

And that's not even getting into iMacs which need new chips, Mac Pro teaser for 2019, services, etc. Gonna be a busy fall. I think I hear my wallet crying already.

Please, @apple, on MacBooks, stop with the virtual function-key row and revert to mechanical keys. If you want to add a secondary strip, feel free, but let us ignore it and type well and properly. A Thinkpad-style classic keyboard home/end/pgup/pgdn/arrow cluster would be nice, too.

I’ve been vocal in hating FaceID on my iPhone. Given the frequency that I unlock my iPhone, which is probably hundreds of times a day, and the frequency at which it fails (fairly often), and how slow it is, and the fact that none of this was a problem for me with TouchID, has made using the iPhone X a frequently frustrating experience. I hate it.

That said, I feel like it would work better on an iPad. My iPad tends to naturally get positioned more parallel with my face, whereas I’m frequently trying to use or unlock my phone at an odd angle. So I’m somewhat open to it, but damn sure won’t be on the front edge buying this time.

But Apple really needs to introduce some sort of fingerprint authentication back into their phones, especially if rumors are true that Samsung is about to do so. Sticking with faceid exclusively is about the only thing that could get me back onto android, especially given how I feel about google. But faceid in current state isn’t viable, and there’s no way I’d buy another iPhone without some type of major change or improvement.

That's a very high satisfaction rate for a first generation feature that significantly chances how you use your phone.

Just like Touch ID, Face ID will get better with newer phones. Apple is far ahead of the competition when it comes to secure facial authentication. It's accepted universally as a method to ID yourself for payments. The notch has a function.I'm not sure if you can pay with any Android phone without entering your code or fingerprint.

I would really appreciate a meaningful and solid upgrade to the Mac Mini! The 2014 model is truly a travesty, and buying 2012 models right now means possibly losing support for newer macOS versions in the near future.

My 2012 Mini is tired and underwhelming, even with a fast SSD and good RAM. Come on Apple, throw us some bones...

This makes me very nervous. Since the profit per unit of their hardware generally is going up, and people seem willing to pay (north of $1000 for an iPhone XS+ or whatever it will be called) I don’t hold up much hope that the ‘sensible’ option of a $1k updated MacBook Air will be on the table... if they dropped the price of the MacBooks to 1k this would have alleviated the problem, but Apple seem unwilling to make this move and reduce potential profitability of what is an underpowered thin and light machine.

The 1st gen MacBook Air was overpriced and underpowered, remember, but it became a superb device, we would never have guessed it would come to represent the more relatively ‘value’ end of their lineup. Cook’s Apple would rather deal with ever higher margins, it seems.

I'm most excited for the iPad Pro with the A12X, though it may be an October event.

Apple A-Series processors are already challenging Intel at the low end. My current iPad Pro is already very fast, and it's on an A10X. I'm really curious what an A12X will perform like, considering this would be the first 'X' processor with a fully custom Apple GPU. Then we have Adobe talking about bringing Photoshop to the iPad. What better way to announce both products then to perform a demo together?

I’ve been vocal in hating FaceID on my iPhone. Given the frequency that I unlock my iPhone, which is probably hundreds of times a day, and the frequency at which it fails (fairly often), and how slow it is, and the fact that none of this was a problem for me with TouchID, has made using the iPhone X a frequently frustrating experience. I hate it.

(snip)

But Apple really needs to introduce some sort of fingerprint authentication back into their phones, especially if rumors are true that Samsung is about to do so. Sticking with faceid exclusively is about the only thing that could get me back onto android, especially given how I feel about google. But faceid in current state isn’t viable, and there’s no way I’d buy another iPhone without some type of major change or improvement.

FaceID was the one feature I was prepared to hate with the iPhone X, and was surprised by how well it worked. It's certainly not perfect, and irritating that it has problems when wearing sunglasses, but overall much better than a fingerprint sensor IMO (I always had problems with my fingers reading on prior generations - or if I was wearing gloves without cap pads, or if my fingers were wet at all). Usually if FaceID isn't working immediately, a simple wobble on the phone will make it work for me. I'm actually for rolling that feature across the line, iPad and iPhone (heck, throw it into the Mac as well).

Walkie-talkie app isn't worth much since it only works with other Watches. Of course that's a problem with pretty much everything voice related anymore, no interoperability between platforms at all.

Old school Skype still has you covered on every major OS, including Linux. And works pretty damn well.

I know Skype isn't "hot" or "modern". But nothing beats it for cross-platform VoIP IMHO.

But the only way to call non-Skype VoIP apps is if they can connect through the PSTN. I want to use FaceTime to call a Skype user, or Facebook, or whatever. It's fine that Skype is most-platform but you're locked into their solution.

It's 2018 and we're still stuck with the 4 KHz audio solution from the 1960s for cryin' out loud!

Well considering your name, anything priced over 1 cent would be a silly price

Only if it comes from the RIAA/MPAA.

Proud to be a pirate.

’’

ok, since you’re proud to be a thief, I suppose you’d steal your phone too, if you thought you could get away with it.

Why phone... lets just jump ahead:

Yes, I would download a car.

Quote:

And you do know you’re cheating composers and performers too.

Not at all. I (used to) pay for songs that should have been in the public domain looong ago, I don't any more.

I’m sure you would, if you could. The culture of piracy exists because pirates believe there’s so little risk to it, virtually none, that’s its worth it. There’s no higher value involved. Just concern for themselves.

I once knew a guy with a Cadillac dealership who was a pirate, and thought the way you do. When I asked him if someone could somehow duplicate the cars he was selling, for free, would that bother him? After all, they wouldn’t really be stealing from him. He didn’t answer.

I'm most excited for the iPad Pro with the A12X, though it may be an October event.

Apple A-Series processors are already challenging Intel at the low end. My current iPad Pro is already very fast, and it's on an A10X. I'm really curious what an A12X will perform like, considering this would be the first 'X' processor with a fully custom Apple GPU. Then we have Adobe talking about bringing Photoshop to the iPad. What better way to announce both products then to perform a demo together?

Yeah but remember the 9.7” iPad gen sixth the launched this past March. It is a great product for an excellent price. I can see them coming up with a similar entry for the laptop line.

I'm most excited for the iPad Pro with the A12X, though it may be an October event.

Apple A-Series processors are already challenging Intel at the low end. My current iPad Pro is already very fast, and it's on an A10X. I'm really curious what an A12X will perform like, considering this would be the first 'X' processor with a fully custom Apple GPU. Then we have Adobe talking about bringing Photoshop to the iPad. What better way to announce both products then to perform a demo together?

Yeah but remember the 9.7” iPad gen sixth the launched this past March. It is a great product for an excellent price. I can see them coming up with a similar entry for the laptop line.

I have the iPad Pro 12.9” 2nd gen too. It’s surprisingly fast. But I wonder what we’ll see with the new one. Since mine came out June 2017, when I bought it (my daughter did too), we expected to see the next, hopefully, again this past June. But Apple isn’t as rigorous with iPad launches as they are with iPhone launches.

So, we’re in a situation where the new iPad Pro may come out in September (I hope), or slightly later, in October (still, not too bad). Where does that leave us in SoC land? If it came out earlier, I would have expected, and been happy with, an A11X. But now with the A12 pretty much here, I’m not sure that will be enough. Traditionally, the X series has been pretty much better in performance than the regular phone version introduced several months earlier. But the succeeding series regular phone version equaled, or slightly exceeded it in performance.

So if we get an A11X now, that would be disappointing, if the new A12 is about equal. If we get an A12, that’s not really enough, because with the much higher Rez and greater need for performance, to have the same chip on the new pro wouldn’t go well, even if they bumped the speed a bit. But having an X model arrive at the same time as the phone version has not happened yet.

I suppose the question is that with the major changes in the iPad, were they expecting it to come out earlier, but couldn’t manage it? If so, did they design, and produce the A11X for it? If so, are they going to use them, or dispose of them, or save them for some later device, such as a newer Apple TV? If they expected it to come out about now, did they have the time to design an A12X for this?

September event:-3 new iPhones (9, 10s, 10s+) give or take some weird naming differences.

Spoiler: show

-Watch series 4-AirPods?-AirPower? Maybe via press release since it's so late. Probably will touch on that though.-New higher wattage power bricks come standard with the new phones. There will be a charging portion of the keynote I bet, especially if AirPower is ready.

October event:-New iPad Pros, possibly bumping up to 11" and 12.9", smaller bezels, FaceID, etc.-New Pencil? Maybe?-Fixing the bottom end of the laptop line, which means...-MacBook Air (and 13" pro without touchbar?) goes away-MacBook 12" gets new chips and keyboard from 2018 Pros.-Introduce a bigger 13 inch "MacBook" that includes 2 TB3 ports, similar to touchbar-less 13" pro. Uses 15W chips like the Air line used, Retina screen, hopefully a revised keyboard. Price reduction on the MacBook line to make their entry level make sense again.-Mac Mini update? Hopefully.

I think Phones + Watch + AirPods/AirPower are one event, iPads/Macs/Mojave are a 2nd event in October. Too much stuff for one event.

And that's not even getting into iMacs which need new chips, Mac Pro teaser for 2019, services, etc. Gonna be a busy fall. I think I hear my wallet crying already.

I'm most excited for the iPad Pro with the A12X, though it may be an October event.

Apple A-Series processors are already challenging Intel at the low end. My current iPad Pro is already very fast, and it's on an A10X. I'm really curious what an A12X will perform like, considering this would be the first 'X' processor with a fully custom Apple GPU. Then we have Adobe talking about bringing Photoshop to the iPad. What better way to announce both products then to perform a demo together?

Yeah but remember the 9.7” iPad gen sixth the launched this past March. It is a great product for an excellent price. I can see them coming up with a similar entry for the laptop line.

I have the iPad Pro 12.9” 2nd gen too. It’s surprisingly fast. But I wonder what we’ll see with the new one. Since mine came out June 2017, when I bought it (my daughter did too), we expected to see the next, hopefully, again this past June. But Apple isn’t as rigorous with iPad launches as they are with iPhone launches.

So, we’re in a situation where the new iPad Pro may come out in September (I hope), or slightly later, in October (still, not too bad). Where does that leave us in SoC land? If it came out earlier, I would have expected, and been happy with, an A11X. But now with the A12 pretty much here, I’m not sure that will be enough. Traditionally, the X series has been pretty much better in performance than the regular phone version introduced several months earlier. But the succeeding series regular phone version equaled, or slightly exceeded it in performance.

So if we get an A11X now, that would be disappointing, if the new A12 is about equal. If we get an A12, that’s not really enough, because with the much higher Rez and greater need for performance, to have the same chip on the new pro wouldn’t go well, even if they bumped the speed a bit. But having an X model arrive at the same time as the phone version has not happened yet.

I suppose the question is that with the major changes in the iPad, were they expecting it to come out earlier, but couldn’t manage it? If so, did they design, and produce the A11X for it? If so, are they going to use them, or dispose of them, or save them for some later device, such as a newer Apple TV? If they expected it to come out about now, did they have the time to design an A12X for this?

This is my theory why we didn’t get an A11X (and will get an A12X).

The A11 was the first time Apple put in a 100% custom designed GPU. It was also the first time they put in a neural processor. This likely required significant additional resources from their engineers. To have those engineers design an A11X (for a much smaller market) while ALSO working on an A12/A12X would have been too taxing, so they skipped the A11X altogether.

In the past Apple used Imagination GPUs. This meant their SoC timetable for release was dependent on Imagination’s timeline for GPUs along with Apples timeline for their CPUs. Now that Apple designs both they control everything. So it makes sense they will now release the regular and ‘X’ versions at the same time each year, instead of staggering them.

Walkie-talkie app isn't worth much since it only works with other Watches. Of course that's a problem with pretty much everything voice related anymore, no interoperability between platforms at all.

Old school Skype still has you covered on every major OS, including Linux. And works pretty damn well.

I know Skype isn't "hot" or "modern". But nothing beats it for cross-platform VoIP IMHO.

But the only way to call non-Skype VoIP apps is if they can connect through the PSTN. I want to use FaceTime to call a Skype user, or Facebook, or whatever. It's fine that Skype is most-platform but you're locked into their solution.

It's 2018 and we're still stuck with the 4 KHz audio solution from the 1960s for cryin' out loud!

Skype offers Skype In (receive calls from normal phones in Skype) and Skype Out (call any normal phone number using Skype) which are petty flexible add-ons and what above what competing services offer. Audio quality is generally much better than 4 KHz these days.

I agree that interoperability would be great. But only Skype offers it. I suppose you could make a paid service that facilitates such cross-platform connection using a cloud-based SIP trunk (which most services but not Facetime offers). Take that as a free business opportunity from me ;-)

Personally I have given up. I hate having a gazillion different VoIP platforms, so I tell friends and family to just install Skype. It's free, easy to use, and works on virrually any damn device they can think of. Over the years this has resulted in pretty much everyone I know having Skype ready to go. So "why doesn't have Skype anyway" is where I am at.

Dear friend. The word "theft" has been used about immaterial objects and property since literally before Hamlet. Language from the 16th century is loaded with examples of people who have STOLEN manuscripts, ideas, books, business secrets, military plans, hearts, love, and a whole bunch of other things.

Acquiring immaterial property without consent is theft. Plain and simple. It had been theft for hundreds of years - quite literally - in terms of language, culture, morality and ethics.

Whatever excuses you conjure up for yourself is pure BS. It's a fantasy you can deceive yourself with, but leave the rest of us out of it please.

The fact that modern law treats the matter as "copyright infringement" does not magically change hundreds of years of culture, language and ethics.

You can't change reality. No matter how much you want to. You are a thief, and apparently proud of it. Go figure...